So, my sister has all the U2 albums so far and I thought, "why not?" They
are the most shamed band on this forum, and possibly of all popular culture. If not, they certainly have made their once respectable name infamous. Maybe what we all need is to "dream it all up again" and give them a second chance.
I've divided this discography into two parts because their 80s material is so vastly different than their 90s and turn of the century material that it's unbelievable.
U2 in the 80s were, according to allmusic.com, "rock and roll crusaders," and when you think back to that most interesting decade and what was dominant musically, you do think of synthesized pop and hair metal. Not U2. In the 80s they were right up there with Bruce Springsteen: grandiose but accessible, the voices of millions. Ironically, their ideas where better realized when they were younger than when they grew old. The late 90s and within our present decade, U2 (especially Bono) have attempted to regain their youth by all the wrong means. But before they lost their purpose (or rather before Bono's own doucheness completely ruined the band), they were real, they were punk, they were raw, they were alive and we weren't ashamed to close our eyes and feel the music for a moment.